


Interlude

by ellieblue



Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Death, Everybody needs therapy, Friendship, Loving babies, Naruto is a shinning baby, No Romance, Other, They are not a couple
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-17
Updated: 2020-07-17
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:48:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25335661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellieblue/pseuds/ellieblue
Summary: Sakura Haruno has known Naruto Uzumaki since she was five years old.Sakura Haruno is a good girl, at least, that's what her parents say.Sakura Haruno likes cherry blossoms, because they appear in the spring. And spring is her favorite season.Sakura Haruno doesn't like boys in general, but she likes Sasuke. Not the way her parents wanted it, but she still likes him.Sakura Haruno has the best friends in the world, the most married, masked, treacherous, musketeers.Sakura Haruno doesn't know how or when that happened.She's shattered.
Relationships: Haruno Sakura & Uchiha Sasuke & Uzumaki Naruto, Haruno Sakura/Uchiha Sasuke/Uzumaki Naruto
Comments: 1
Kudos: 23





	Interlude

**Author's Note:**

> Hello... It's me...  
> Okay, this fanfic was origenally written in portuguese, and that means that english is not my first languase, then it could probably have something wrong.  
> This is a fanfic from Naruto... but is not a SasuSaku fanfic (there's no romance here)!  
> Please read the tags if you need some kind of TW!  
> That it, I hope you like it.

> _In. ter. lu. de._
> 
> **noun**
> 
> _1 an intervening period of time._
> 
> _ 2 _ _a pause between the acts of a play._
> 
> _ 3 _ _something performed during a theater intermission._

Sakura met Naruto when she was very young.

He was the outgoing boy of the class, restless, never shut up, not for a second. Sakura didn't like him, _at first._ Especially when she was the target of his jokes and _confessions?_ Things that the girl herself found unimaginably annoying, because Naruto never stopped. And so there was always a distance between the two of them, even though Kushina was a good friend of her mother.

Sakura always tried to avoid contact with the golden hair boy who lived in the house across the street. However, even though Naruto disgusted the girl, they always ended up talking on colder days, when Kushina was on duty at the Konoha Hospital Care Unit or when Minato was called urgently to the office, even if it was his day off; it was when he took refuge in her house.

They always ended up there, in that corner of the bedroom, with rosette pillows thrown on the floor and two mugs of hot chocolate, made by her mother. Naruto was the friend that Sakura didn't ask for. It came into her life like a hurricane, bringing confusion and mess. A mess she didn't hate, it didn't stop. Because at the end of the day, it was Naruto who pulled a smile off her face, he was the one who hugged her when the kids were mean. And it was he who introduced Sasuke.

On an autumn day, while the leaves fell from the trees and covered the ground, the sidewalks, the streets, the roads... This time, it was Sakura's parents who weren’t at home and she had to take shelter at her friend’s home. It was there, in that bedroom with exaggerated orange walls, that Sakura saw _him_ for the first time.

She had heard about him before, not exactly about _him_ , but about them. Sasuke and Naruto. Inseparable friends, who never left each other. The boy with hair as black as his own eyes was not very open to talking to the girl. He didn't even look at her, actually. Quietly, he fiddled with the cards in Naruto's magic deck. He opened his mouth a few times, only to answer the boy with the cerulean eyes in such a low tone that it made Sakura wonder if she had really heard a word come out of his lips.

Soon, she found out that Sasuke was no harm. That it was a trait of the boy's personality that Sakura would have to get used to in order to get close to him. Naruto asked her to insist, not to let Sasuke release anyone else's hand. Because the dark hair boy had already lost too much in his life. And Naruto didn't want to lose him, either.

So, Sakura was, for years and years, waiting, insisting that the boy finally open up with her. She kept hammering in Sasuke's mind until he couldn't take it anymore. That's even when she managed to reach the peak of the Uchiha boy's patience: the first time he raised his voice to her, the first time he called her _annoying_. And that day, Sakura cried alone in her room. Not because of her _friend's_ harsh words _,_ but because she had managed to get something out of him. Whatever feeling it was, besides Sasuke's frigidity. Something she could take as her own achievement.

She didn’t pretend not to be surprised when he sat next to her in geography class, passing her a note scrawled with a simple, brief apology, without exaggeration. Sakura ignored the astonishment and just hugged him, right there in the middle of the classroom. Because she finally felt that Sasuke was with her too, not ignoring her.

Now, she admitted it had been an exaggeration, with screams of happiness and all. Because her attitude culminated in the creation of a rumor that ran throughout the school. But neither Sasuke, nor even Naruto — with all his vows of love — seemed to care. They were just together, that was what really mattered. Maybe because of that, and just because of that, they had promised each other that one day they would live in a house, with cats and dogs, the three of them, together until the end.

When Sakura was thirteen, she dyed her hair with the pink bubble gum color, triggering an extensive discussion with her father. At the middle of those thoughtless words of both of them, she decided to leave her house a little. However, the preteen did not know the exact meaning of “ _little_ ”, it took two full days until Kizashi found her at the Uchiha’s house, in Sasuke's room, lying on the bed as if it were her own.

The boy just shrugged at his father's frown, without giving a word as an explanation. He had nothing to say, they would not understand. That gesture of bravery and loyalty cost them both days of punishment. However, Sakura did not change her hair color, she interpreted her friend's act as a sign to continue as she was, she would not have spent his days in vain.

One day, Sasuke asked Sakura a strange question:

“Can I kiss you?”

The then teenager did not understand at first. But when she understood, she spat out all the water she had put in her mouth. _Was Sasuke crazy? Only could!_ It broke all the friendship protocols they had found on the internet. Friends didn't kiss friends, that's what everyone said. Letting him do that meant feeding the rumors even more and that was not what Sakura wanted, more unfounded stories on her shoulders. She didn't want to deal with that.

But when she saw Sasuke's strange look, she couldn't help asking. And the answer could have no other effect than surprise:

“Naruto and I kissed.”

That pulled an “ _ah” out_ of the girl's mouth, because that action was not to be expected by Sasuke, perhaps by Naruto, but not by him. Then, she asked and asked until her friend answered that he didn't like it, unlike Naruto, who liked it a lot. And it was there that she understood, it was all about _Naruto_ , Sasuke didn't want to hurt Naruto, that's why he was doing it. So he was asking her for that favor.

Sakura was no fool, she knew that the rush that the other boy had with the Uchiha was not just a result of the long friendship they had built. For a long time she wanted to believe it was, but she wasn't stupid enough to deny it at that moment. And she saw in Sasuke's eyes how it hurt him not to reciprocate. He wanted that kiss as confirmation. And she gave it to him.

As a result, the teenager girl spent the entire afternoon with her fingers infiltrating Sasuke's hair, telling him that everything was fine. Saying it was normal, that maybe he didn't like her that way either. Kissing wasn't much, dating wasn't much, because he was him the way he was, so none of that mattered.

It took a long time for her to understand that Sasuke didn't like girls.

Not even boys.

Not even anyone.

Perhaps it had been easier for the three of them at that time, a definition to explain everything that was happening, a label, _aromantic_. Perhaps it would have been easier for Naruto, who sustained a platonic love for longer than he should have, even if it hurt him not to be reciprocated. Still, he understood. And suddenly, everything was fine again.

The blond boy continued to kiss Sasuke on the cheek, like when they were little and Sakura still hugged him from behind. Perhaps that was the reason they had maintained that crazy friendship for so long. Even after Naruto got into fights and appeared with _Band-Aids_ on his face every week. Even when he said he couldn't take anymore. That pain resonated with the three, because the pair of friends knew that they were the only basis that Uzumaki had. Especially after Kushina's tumor, after burial, after crying.

Naruto was never the same again.

In October, they decided it was time to make that wedding happen. The union of the three musketeers, even though none of them had a romantic relationship. They were together, as they had promised. That month, they had a picnic entitled to orange cake from Sakura's mother — who was a pastry chef. They exchanged pendants. The three swords for the three musketeers. Without the forth, but that would still be complete.

They didn't take their necklaces off for nothing. Not even when they showered. 

That same month, Sasuke won one scholarship to study at one of the best schools in town. And they went to celebrate again, this time, they tested alcohol for the first time. Fortunately, none of the three liked it. But they didn't stop before finishing the beers they had bought that night.

Sakura remembered few things, the two boys dancing on the table. Sasuke saying he loved them both. Naruto crying when he heard the words that his friend never dared to say to any of them. A memory that would stick in her mind until the end of time. Along with all the other good days they shared with each other. Because they were a trio, one of those inseparable ones, who would live their whole lives meeting and showing pictures of the cats to each other.

It was what they thought.

December was already knocking on the door and with that Christmas was coming and infiltrating the houses little by little. The three families decided it was a good time to celebrate together. And Christmas dinner would be at Sasuke's house. The adults would take the opportunity to catch up, while the teenagers did the same thing as always: invade Sasuke's bedroom and play a game. However, that event did not happen. And all the young people's plans went downhill because of yet another call.

A call from the hospital.

Sakura was surprised by Sasuke's choked voice on the phone. There was a problem with the boy, she knew, whether it was the low sound of conversations in the background, or the lethargy with which he spoke. Everything was too strange for her. She knew that nothing was right when, for the first time in her life, she heard her friend cry. And that time — just that time — the girl with pink hair didn't want to be a friendly shoulder. She didn't want to hear him cry, so she didn't answer, so she left the phone on while she crawled into the corner of the bathroom. Because she knew what was going on and didn't want to believe it.

She hoped that, if she perhaps ignored everything, things could be erased. _Maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe..._ So many possibilities running through her mind. And nothing erased what happened the next day. When the two of them were at the side of the bed, sitting on the sofa in the room paid for by Fugaku Uchiha.

“I'm so tired of this shit that I just want to die for good.” That was what he said, sitting on the bed.

And he knew right away that it was the wrong words, because Sasuke started to sob again. Naruto never wanted to make Sasuke cry, never wanted to think that he would be the one to let go of his friend's hand first.

 _Sorry, sorry, sorry..._ He pleaded incessantly, weeping, on his knees to his friend. _He,_ _a_ hypocrite, the one who said he would never let Sasuke lose anyone else. He wouldn't let Sasuke cry like he did because of Itachi. _He had been the cause of it all._ The truth was that everyone was too tired to even breathe. Naruto was the biggest one. He had hurt them, he didn't want to do that, since he didn't want to lose anyone either, _he couldn't take being alone anymore._

And there, holding the hands of the two friends, Uzumaki made his contract: he would stay, he wouldn’t leave, he would remain where he was supposed to be. Because that was his home, _they_ were his home.

Four months later, the three graduated from school. They were too relieved. All that school pressure was gone. Sasuke was going to the capital in two months, to fix his apartment. Naruto wanted to stay there as usual. In the midst of his chemotherapy sessions and visits to the basketball training sessions of the boys at his old school. The coach had told him that _if_ he got better, he would let Naruto play again, a lesson for the disobedient boys on the team. In the meantime, the blond boy had started using his crutch to help support his tired body from going to the hospital. Sakura had already passed medical school in second place in the state. Nothing more than expected for the _nerd-Haruno,_ the brain of the trio.

In July, they tried to meet up to give Sasuke a dignified farewell. With promises that the two of them would go to the capital to mess up the rich man's apartment.

“I’ll be waiting”, he said, with a small smile on his face, which made Naruto chuckle.

That would be the first broken promise between the three.

Because Sasuke could not wait until they reach the capital, he was forced to return to Konoha a month before the scheduled date for them to show up at his apartment.

“You look beautiful.” They were the first words that came out of his mouth when he found Sakura again. She wore a dress in various shades of pink, with a beautiful ribbon on her head, as green as her eyes. Yeah, she was really pretty, despite the occasion.

Sakura Haruno didn't like Naruto Uzumaki the first time she saw him. He was clumsy, messy, grumpy, loud... All the bad things. Sasuke Uchiha, on the contrary, always liked him, but didn’t like her on his first meeting. Naruto was always the central point for them to meet. Naruto was always everything they needed in their lives.

As in Rome, all their paths took them to Naruto, perhaps that was why they were so lost at that moment.

He was gone. Even if he had promised that he would not go at all. Sasuke and Sakura had believed him, because, after all, Naruto never broke promises. That was the last time he was able to do it.

It was a shock when the news got out, hereditary stomach cancer had spread throughout the digestive tract, in a way that doctors could not predict. _Naruto was fine. Naruto was fine. Naruto was fine._ He had to be! He was in every message, in every call, at all times. He couldn't go. Nobody had given him that right.

But Naruto, as stubborn as ever, had taken him for himself.

He went before they could return.

The burial served as an interlude for those who remained. Sasuke returned to the capital, only to bury himself in his studies. Sakura took the first plane to Italy, with the promise of never returning. She wanted to bury all those memories that took the air out of her lungs. That made her stomach turn and bile rise, burning her throat. She wanted to put an end to that whole story, which started with Naruto and ended with him too.

However, Sakura should have been smart enough to know that not all promises could be kept. Because there she was again, in the flowered park of Konoha. The cherry blossoms were already falling, spreading all over that space. She sat at their old meeting place, her hand on the sword pendant she had found two weeks earlier, while organizing the boxes for the old move.

Her wife was still in bed when she left, she said goodbye only with a kiss on the temple, the woman deserved a good rest.

The cellphone vibrated in her hand. And she wasted no time looking at it, because she already knew what it was. _He had arrived._ With those shiny shoes and the nice suit, as if he had just left an important meeting. Dobby ran to Sakura before his owner could get close, firing licks all over the woman's face. But when he arrived, she couldn't help but smile.

"Hello, Sasuke," she said first.

“Welcome back.”


End file.
